God Our Heavenly Father

by Ted Georgian

The Lord’s Prayer is very familiar; many of us memorized it as children. I must admit,though, that on more than one occasion I’ve stood up leading a worship service, andfound myself thinking, “… as we forgive our debtors – what comes next??” But thenagain, I still find myself humming the ABC song while I alphabetize student papers,especially around J and K.
What Jesus has given us is a model prayer: he’s not telling us to use these exact words whenever we pray, althoughthere’s nothing wrong with that. We’re told to pray like this (Matthew 6:9). When Jesus gave his disciples thisprayer as a model on a different occasion, recorded in Luke 11, there were some differences. This is a prayer to bestudied and understood, not just recited from memory, without thought.I. GOD OUR FATHERWe are so used to the Lord’s prayer that we no longer recognize how radically it begins. The Old Testament almostnever refers to God as our father. Fourteen times in about 1200 pages. Yet Jesus spoke constantly of God as hisFather (16 times in the Sermon on the Mount alone), and here he taught his disciples that they were also to call Godtheir father. “Our Father…” What does that phrase tell us about prayer?When we pray “Our Father” we are reminded of a central truth of the Christian life – no matter what our age, nomatter how many years we’ve been following Jesus Christ, we are still only children. All our pride, our self-sufficiency, our posturing: it’s like a young child wearing mommy’s shoes or daddy’s hat and pretending to be agrownup. Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, puts it like this (Matthew 6:8-9): “Don’t fall for thatnonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God likethis loving you, you can pray very simply.” When you pray, remember you’re just a child. Your prayers don’t haveto be sophisticated or complex.What do we learn when we meditate on the beginning of this model prayer, “Our Father in heaven”? What sort ofeffect should this phrase have on us? First, we should respond with gratitude. You literally owe your life to yourearthly father – you would not exist if it weren’t for him. (Oh, I know, your mother as well. But I’m talking hereabout our heavenly Father.) In a much deeper way, you owe your life to your heavenly Father. Not only is he yourCreator, who brought you into existence in the first place, he is also the one who brought you back to life, tospiritual life, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins. We usually translate John 3:3 “unless you are bornagain, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” But that verse can just as well be translated “unless you are born fromabove…” John wrote in the Prologue to his Gospel (1:12-13) “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed inThis Photo byUnknown Authoris licensedunder CC BY-SA-NC
his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decisionor a husband's will, but born of God.” Your life – physical and spiritual – is a gift from your heavenly Father.Respond with gratitude.Second, we should respond with humility. We are God’s children, not his equals. Here’s where the analogy withhuman fathers breaks down. At first, when we’re young children, we know almost nothing about life, and thesimplest tasks, like tying a shoe, have to be done for us by our parents. We look up to our parents as if they knowand can do everything. But children are merely our apprentices, not our inferiors, and they grow up very quickly. Iremember when my oldest daughter Beth decided to start running one summer, to try out for the cross-country teamthat Fall. “Beth,” I said, “I’ll take you out running.” After all, I thought, I ran cross country in high school myself. Ican show her a thing or two. Well, what she showed me, at about the mile mark, were her heels. No way could Ikeep up with her. Children grow quickly to be their parents’ equals, and often surpass us. But not so with ourheavenly Father – prayer is a reminder that we are always small children in relationship to him.Third, prayer should produce a deep sense of our dependence on our heavenly Father. Think for a moment aboutwhat a father is supposed to do for his children. There are many possible answers, but these three occurred to me: afather is expected to provide for his children, to protect, and to guide them. Not all human fathers do this, of course,but we’re talking about a heavenly Father here. He can be depended on to meet our needs; in fact, there is no otherway that our needs will be met. We are wholly dependent on him. There’s a hymn, based on Ps. 139, that begins,“All that I am I owe to thee.” That’s what we’re taught here.Fourth, the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we can trust God. He had adopted us into his family and he can bedepended on to meet our needs. Indeed, we need to keep reminding ourselves that he knows what we need before weask. Psalm 103 (13-14) puts it this way: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassionon those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”Fifth, when Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father in heaven”, he meant us to understand that our heavenly Father is awelcoming God. Luke 15 records a story Jesus told about a father who had two sons. We often call it the “parableof the prodigal son”, but both sons were estranged from his love, each in his own way – the younger by his indulgentself-love, the older by his pride. Do you remember what the father did in each case? He went to each son; he tookthe initiative to repair the relationships. That’s the sort of heavenly Father Jesus is showing us.We learn so much as we pray “Our Father…”: we learn to be grateful to God, to be humble toward him, to respondto him in dependence and trust, and to feel confident in his welcoming love. We pray to a Father who loves us muchmore than we can imagine.II. GOD OUR FATHERBut we’ve skipped the first word of the Lord’s Prayer. [Actually, it comes second in the Greek, which literallybegins “Father of ours…”] Don’t skip over that word. “Our”. Why are we taught to pray in the plural? Here arethree reasons.First, we pray “Our Father” to be reminded that we’re not only children. One commentator wrote that “Products ofa culture that is self-absorbed and self-centered, many contemporary Christians pray the words “Our Father” butthey mean only, “My Father.” Colleges are finding they need to renovate their residence halls to appeal to a newgeneration, products of small families who have never in their lives shared a bedroom. Put them into a traditional,small freshman double and there’s often trouble.
But as Christian believers we’re not only children – we have hundreds of sisters and brothers. Growing up in a largefamily can be fun, but it also brings with it the obligation to think in terms of what’s best for the whole family, notjust for me. Similarly, our prayers as Christians should reflect the larger family we belong to. Praying with and forone another needs to be a vital part of the life of our congregation.Second, praying to our Father reminds us that we are not to restrict our prayers to our own needs. Philip Rykenreprinted a poem in his book on the Lord’s Prayer that makes this point well. It’s not very good poetry, but it focusesus on something we’re likely to overlook in the Lord’s Prayer:You cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer And even once say “I”.You cannot say the Lord’s Prayer And even once say “My”.Nor can you pray the Lord’s Prayer And not pray for each other,For when you ask for daily bread You must include your brother.For others are included In each and every plea –From the beginning to the end of it It never once says, “Me!”Take a moment to look through the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and see how true this is. The Lord’s Prayer is forthe body of Christ, not just for individuals. Our prayers shouldn’t resemble a nest full of baby birds, each with itsmouth open, crying over and over again: “I’m hungry; feed me.” The Lord’s Prayer teaches us not to pray like babybirds; it teaches us to pray for others.We should also expect that just as our prayers are to be corporate, so will the answers often be corporate. What I’mpraying for may not be given to me, but to another member of the body of Christ, to be shared. Am I praying for mydaily bread? Perhaps God will answer that prayer by giving you such success in your job that you can help me whenI’m unemployed. Am I praying for help with temptation? Perhaps the answer will be that I can’t conquer thattemptation on my own; I need to tell you about it and ask for your wisdom, your prayers, your daily phone calls tocheck up on me. Am I praying that God’s kingdom will come in Wellsville, NY, as a result of the ministry of thischurch? How can that possibly happen unless each member of this body recognizes and exercises her or his spiritualgifts? If I pray to my Father for my needs, I may completely miss the answers. Our Father will meet our needs.Thirdly (and again, I got this idea from Ryken), there’s an even deeper significance to Jesus teaching us to pray toour Father. Jesus is, after all, the eternal Son of God. It wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d said, “When you prayto my Father, pray like this.” But no – he includes us in that relationship he has with his heavenly Father. He’s thenatural Son – we’re only adopted – but when we pray “Our Father”, that distinction fades and Jesus invites us tocome to the Father with him.Jesus is actually there ahead of us. We read in Hebrews 5:7-8 that “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayersand supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard becauseof his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” And Paul tells us(Romans 8:34) that Jesus is praying for us now at the right hand of God the Father.As we struggle with prayer, we are reminded that we need to copy our “big brother.” You parents will have noticedthat a younger child learns things at a much earlier age than the oldest child because she watches everything herolder sister does. When it comes to prayer, keep your eye on your big brother. He knows “the ropes”; he’s thereahead of us. Learn to pray from his example.III. GOD OUR HEAVENLY FATHERFinally, Jesus taught us to pray to our Father in heaven. This phrase balances all the analogies I’ve been drawing
between God and earthly fathers. God is not just a bigger and better version of our own fathers, let alone thegrandfatherly image that has such a hold on popular opinion in our culture. God dwells and reigns in heaven, anunimaginably glorious King. We need to balance the idea of God as a close, loving father against this image, of aGod who is surrounded by such greatness and splendor that if we caught even a glimpse of his heavenly glory wewould, like the prophets, be unable to stand the sight. Isaiah (chapter 6) saw a vision of “the Lord seated on athrone, high and exalted, and the train of his robe fill[ing] the temple” and he responded by crying out “Woe to me!I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen theKing, the LORD Almighty." Ezekiel (chapter 1) was given a similar vision and fell on his face in awe; and John(Revelation 1:17), shown the glory of the ascended Lord, “fell at his feet as a dead man.” We mustn’t confuse theintimacy with which Jesus spoke of his Father with a casual familiarity. “Our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews12:29)What does it mean to pray to a Father in heaven? For one thing, despite the emphasis in the first part of mymessage on God’s welcoming love, God is also, in some sense, entirely remote and inaccessible to us. A favoritehymn of mine begins “Immortal, invisible, God only wise; In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes.” I have to becareful not to deny the presence of the Holy Spirit when I say this, but God the Father is in heaven, beyond ourvision. This means that much of the time our prayers will be a struggle for us, a struggle of faith. We pray to a Godwe can’t see or even fully imagine. The book of Hebrews tells us that this is the nature of faith: “faith is theassurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is at the heart of prayer; Imight even say, “Prayer is faith at work.” The writer of Hebrews went on to tell us, “without faith it is impossible toplease him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seekhim.” (11:6) We should accept that for our children, and just as much for ourselves, prayer will be difficult. It willstrain our faith.But there’s good news with the bad: praying to a heavenly Father also means that we are praying to the greatSovereign of the universe, to the One “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think”(Ephesians 3:20). John Newton has a line in his hymn Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare that reminds us of this fact:Thou art coming to a King,Large petitions with thee bring;For His grace and pow'r are suchNone can ever ask too much,None can ever ask too much.CONCLUSIONAll this from just the first four words of the Lord’s Prayer! It’s a short, simple prayer, easily memorized, and yetwith depths that will take a lifetime, at least, to grasp. We face many challenges, as individuals, families, and acongregation. They can be met only if we understand who we’re praying to, and then actually pray. I trust that thismeditation, and the ones to come, will enrich your prayers – no, will enrich our prayers. Prayer is both a rareprivilege and a duty. Let’s not neglect it.

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